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A comment on Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” option when installing Windows. Parent comment

Re:Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” option wh... by jasonjayr on Sunday September 29, 2019 @06:56AM (#21106329)
If the key is in the HSM, then what's protecting your data is the trust in the boot chain not being broken, and the OS login not not being compromised (theoretically).

Booting an alternate OS, or removing the media will result in the HSM not giving up the key, and rendering the drive unusable for all attackers except those able to physically probe the HSM chips and extract keys. (theoretically)

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Re:Microsoft has removed the “use offline account” option wh... by e12e on Sunday September 29, 2019 @07:10AM (#21106384)
Right. It's not really the hsm itself I worry about (although as we saw with the Xbox hack people are able to do some crazy stuff) , but the possibility of working around/breaking the os login manager - manipulating the camera or hooking up a custom "keyboard" or some such.

For example i have trouble trusting pin login against brute force when the attacker has unrestricted physical access - including the possibility of replacing/manipulating the ram chips etc.

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